Tech Today: Carrier Blocks Google’s Payment App

Carrier Blocks Google’s Payment App: The Galaxy Nexus may have been designed by Google and it may run on Google’s Android operating system, but Verizon Wireless, which will start selling the phone to subscribers this month, has blocked Google from installing Google Wallet, its payment app.

Verizon is working alongside rival carriers AT&T and T-Mobile on a payment system called Isis. The viability of Google Wallet may be called into question, the Wall Street Journal notes, if Sprint ends up being the only carrier to support Google Wallet. [WSJ, ComputerWorld, The Verge]

European Commission to Investigate Apple, Publishers: The European Commission said yesterday that it is going to investigate whether publishers engaged in anti-competitive practices, “possibly with the help of Apple,” in selling e-books.

The publishers to be investigated are Hachette Livre, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, Penguin and Macmillan.

Intel, Micron Continue Moore’s Law March: The two chipmakers are set to announce what they believe are the first NAND flash-memory products that store 128 gigabits of data, twice the amount of other chips now on the market. Digits writes that the news is confirmation that companies are keeping pace with Moore’s Law which predicts a doubling in the number of transistors on a chip every two years . [Digits/ WSJ]

H-P Buys Another Company: H-P says that it will buy Hilflex Software, a maker of printing management software. During the company’s last earnings call, new CEO Meg Whitman said that H-P would not be engaging in any large acquisitions in 2012. AllThingsD reports that the deal is small enough that terms have not been disclosed. [AllThingsD]

Usability Guru: Kindle Fire is Disappointing: Jakob Nielsen, an expert on human-computer interaction, says that Amazon’s new tablet offers a “disappointingly poor user experience.” In a blog post, Nielsen cited how the device’s 7-inch screen size led to the “fat-finger problem,” where users accidentally touch the wrong fields or buttons. Nielsen also faulted the device’s web browser, which he called”clunky and error-prone,” as well as its weight.

Elsewhere, an analyst from Evercore Partners writes that the Kindle Fire’s $199 price will be enough to “vaporize” competition from other Android tablets. [Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, AllThingsD]

Starbucks Processes 26 Million Mobile Payments: VentureBeat reports that Starbucks has taken in more than 26 million mobile payments since January. The company’s mobile pay apps allow users to load money on to a digital Starbucks card and then present a 2D barcode to pay-by-scan at the register. The apps were launched in January. [VentureBeat]